Husky Football Blog

Happened to be at UW today and was handed a copy of the football media guide for this season. They aren't available yet to the general public, so if you usually get one sent to you, it will be a week or two before they come --- the school had a few shipped early to hand out at Pac-10 media day Thursday.

This year represents a change in how the Huskies have handled their media guides. New NCAA rules a few years ago limited schools to printing no more than 208 pages in a media guide. That meant a lot of schools, such as Washington,. had to cut out a lot of information.

Since schools used the media guides for recruiting purposes, as well --- including lots of info aimed at selling the school to recruits, such as pictures of the campus, flashy bios of the coaches, etc. --- most of what got cut was record book-type stuff.

What some schools are doing, however, is publishing a spring media guide aimed solely at the media, one including all of the stats and historical data, etc. --- one that can't be given to recruits --- and another in the fall that is aimed at recruits. UW is apparently the first Pac-10 school to join this trend, which appears to have started in The Big Ten, publishing this record book and media guide in the spring and now publishing another one aimed largely at recruits this fall.

The fall media guide does include a lot of player and historical info, but it's a lot flashier, more of a yearbook-style. It includes full-page pictures and bios on every Husky scholarship player, the kind of thing that will be perfect for kids to get signed on Picture Day.

There's no real news in the fall guide --- everybody is included other than those already known to no longer be on the team such as J.R. Hasty -- but one item of note is that LB Joshua Gage is listed with the scholarship players. Under his picutre it states that the "former walk-on earned a scholarship for the 2007 season and again in 2008.''

No other walk-ons are listed in the scholarship section. WR Charles Hawkins, who earned a scholarship last year, is listed in the walk-ons section. That doesn't mean Hawkins or other walk-ons couldn't earn scholarships later, just that they aren't considered scholarship players heading into the season.

Also, someone had asked about Tripper Johnson's eligiblity. He is listed in the guide as a fourth-year junior, meaning he has two more years to play. As noted in the spring, he took a few JC classes while playing minor league baseball that impacted his eligibility.

The cover features action drawings of Jake Locker and Daniel Te'o-Nesheim with Juan Garcia, Donald Butler and D'Andre Goodwin on the back. The inside covers feature photo montages of Huskies in the NFL, such as Laywer Milloy, Mark Bruener, Marques Tuiasosopo and Reggie Williams --- not something UW has ever done before and obviously aimed at showing recruits Huskies who have had success in the NFL.

There is no two-deep in the guide and there may not be an official one until the week before the first game, when the Huskies traditionally release it.

The guide is not yet available on-line, but should be soon.

And speaking of Locker, he will accompany UW coach Tyrone Willingham to Pac-10 Media Day Thursday. This is the final week of summer classes for most players --- the quarter officially ends Wednesday --- so players are spending this week finishing that up, and many will then head home for what will be their last break before practice begins Aug. 4. Players will be due back on campus Aug. 2.

Might be a dumb question, but has a sophomore ever been a team's player representative at Pac 10 media day? Also, who's Gary Rogers?

Posted by UWHuskytSkeet

7:51 PM, Jul 22, 2008

Stick to the ESPN boards, or the WSU blog in the Colfax Weekly, WSUX3.

Posted by Josh Foster

9:30 PM, Jul 22, 2008

Bob, Softy mentioned during his show Brandon Johnson was going down there too. He only mentioned it briefly so he might have been wrong, but I was just curious if you've heard anything.

Posted by curious

10:05 PM, Jul 22, 2008

Does the media guide list what players are majoring in? How many are majoring in American Ethnic Studies again this year?

Posted by Bob Condotta

11:19 PM, Jul 22, 2008

Brandon Johnson is from LA, where media day is, so maybe he's just going there on his own. The official list shows only Locker and teams usually bring only one player, but there have been years when the LA teams have brought more than one player. As mentioned, players are off after completing summer school this week until they have to be back for the start of practice.

The guide does not list majors. Pre-Arts and Sciences appears to be the favorite though I didn't do an exact count. Maybe I'll get to that later.

Thanks, Bob. It's always interesting seeing which players are taking advantage of their education, and which ones are just majoring in football.

Posted by purpledawgz

7:54 AM, Jul 23, 2008

Bob-- Would it be possible in these last waning weeks of summer to contact Hugh Millen and have him provide you with the statistics that he used late last year on KJR that have often been cited here? I would appreciate the opportunity to read an article written by you that neutrally breaks-down what has often been tossed back-and-forth about "success after three losing seasons". It might be a fun, "controversial" piece right before the season starts to stir-up the blog activity too. Just have your bosses wait to publish it until _after_ the first recruit verbally commits... :::g:::

Boise Truth-- Thanks for the kind words a few posts back. I'll throw-in some comments on BYU maybe once the season starts. About all I can say right now is that I have faith in our offense to perform competitively with anyone, but the defense is going to be a coin flip to start the season. That said, I can see us going 0-3 or 3-0 and everything between. Also, a pleasure to see you back and so active on here the past few days. I've missed your perspective (though I'm not quite sure on what... seems lately things keep spinning in circles and we get the same comments over and over, just on different days).

MelloDawg-- Though many others will disagree with me, glad to see you haven't dropped off the face of the earth either. While I often disagree with your point of view and interpretation of the "facts", you argue your points coherently more often than not (if not cynically). The beauty of this blog that keeps me coming back is that there is room for all--even cancers like jh.

pdxdawg, Eugene Husky, Malibu, Chris Miller-- Haven't seen any of you in forever, though I admit I skim more and more these days and could have easily missed some of your comments. I miss your contributions and hope you're just skimming with me and waiting for the season to begin...

Yakima Sundodger-- I got married last fall during the UCLA away game. Apparently we picked a good game to miss. Still, in true Husky spirit, there was a rousing version of "Bow" sung at the reception much to the chagrin of my Cougar relatives in attendance. I hope you enjoy the "replay".

Reality Check-- I believe a post or two back you were asking the question that's been posted here several times: how can we be so young so late in the rebuilding game? One of Bob's posts">http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/huskyfootball/2008/06/and_then_there_were_seven.html">posts recently addressed the first class of the Coach Willingham era. What you will notice (especially if you look at the second class of Coach Willingham's era) is that he took a decent gamble on JC transfers to provide early contribution, depth, and relief for young guys. Note that while I am no recruiting expert, I get the impression from those who are that the percentage of JC's in 2006 was notably high. Some of these individuals panned out, but some did not. I'll see if I have time today to take a better look at it and break it down, but the short answer is that Coach Willingham's early recruiting strategy is not much different than the banks that took on risky mortgages or the motion picture companies that signed deals with HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray--sometimes the gamble that could be a big hit with great returns is a losing one and it comes back to bite you. Unfortunately for UW fans, we have suffered the bite as much as Coach Willingham. But, how happy would we be if guys like Ashlee Palmer and Anthony Atkins had two solid years in the system adding just that much more depth?

Posted by purpledawgz

8:05 AM, Jul 23, 2008

pdxdawg-- There you are! Didn't even read this thread before I posted. Good question about a sophomore going to Media Day.

Bob-- wish I could edit my comments the way you can edit your posts. (Cursed href tags...)

Posted by Husky Fan In New York

8:34 AM, Jul 23, 2008

The problem with thin upper classes on the team is that Gilby's 2004 class two of the 3 highest rated recruits never played a down for UW and the 3rd (Dashon Goldson) only played 2 years as a JC guy. Couple that with a fair amount of guys playing as true frosh and that's why the SR. class is small. The JR class is small because that was the year in between Gilbertson's firing and Willingham's hiring in 2005.

On the bright side, UW should return about 17 starters out of 22 (+/- 1) next year since Garcia, Bulyca, and Gottlieb are the only SR. starters on offense while my projected SR starters on defense are Kirton and Forrester are the only ones who graduate on that side of the ball.

Posted by UWHuskytSkeet

9:03 AM, Jul 23, 2008

Bob ~

The Seattle Times should really make a response to all the comments from the 2000 UW team. Most make excellent points for how inane the article really was. Take a look:

Baird tell us what you really think about the Times article. WOW! I understand his feelings. While the articles where interesting the theme remains the same WHY? Only one answer to that question, because they can.

Posted by Bob Condotta

9:26 AM, Jul 23, 2008

On the 2000 series, there is a response in the article Johnson provided if you read through it, from Nick Perry, who was one of the authors. As stated in this space all along, any comment on that series is left to those who wrote and edited it.

Purpledawgz --- Good idea. I'll see what I can do on that.

Posted by amere

10:06 AM, Jul 23, 2008

Bob, can you please check to see of Halseth is in the media guide. There is some uncertainty if Ty let him back on the team for this season.

Posted by poster

10:18 AM, Jul 23, 2008

Any thoughts on which of the following definitions (Dictionary.com) describes the journalism of the 2000 Series?

jour·nal·ism [jur-nl-iz-uhm]

–noun
1. the occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing, or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a business.
2. press1 (def. 31).
3. a course of study preparing students for careers in reporting, writing, and editing for newspapers and magazines.
4. writing that reflects superficial thought and research, a popular slant, and hurried composition, conceived of as exemplifying topical newspaper or popular magazine writing as distinguished from scholarly writing: (He calls himself a historian, but his books are mere journalism).

Posted by Reality Check

10:35 AM, Jul 23, 2008

Great link HFNY... Thank you for posting that.

It does raise an interesting question (again). Why exactly do the Seattle Times and Seattle PI feel obligated to drag our local institutions and traditions through the mud? (Or why does the national media run down our own country for that matter?) Don James is a pretty level head, so it carries a lot of weight for me when I read that quote from him.

I'm not saying journalism needs to be all roses and sunshine. But on the flip side of the coin, it doesn't mean you always need to look for the negative.

Perhaps that Eagles song (Dirty Laundry) had it right! "She can tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye." It often feels like that's the case with journalism. And as a guy who has lived in a few different parts of the country, I will say the Seattle media seem particularly obsessed with the shocking and the negative.

Anyway, there's a lot of good stuff about Seattle and the Husky football program. And seeing more reporting on that would be nice.

Posted by Ducks 45 Dawgs 13

12:11 PM, Jul 23, 2008

Classic Don James, blaming the newspaper for taking down the program and not taking responsibility for his many years of cheating, the actions of the players on his team that got the UW placed on probation, and then quiting on the team and university when they needed him the most. What would the program have looked like if DJ had been a man and stuck around to guide the program through sanctions?

I found the series to be interesting, but agree that rehashing it all 8 years after the fact in order to sell some papers was a little ridiculous. I believe the moral to the story was be happy with the team you have now, even if they don't win a lot of games, because the players are staying out of trouble.

Posted by BoiseTruth

12:28 PM, Jul 23, 2008

I'm consolidating some messages on this thread, and hope you guys catch up to them.

Indiana,
Glad you're back Nate. Wishing you the best on your Bar exam. I'm sure you'll do well. If not, you can take my Bar exam - it won't get you to your goal, but it'll be a lot of fun.

Purpledawgz,
Always good to hear from you. I had some free time the other day so I decided to pick a thread, and see if I could get a good football thread going. Something other than the circular bickering we get so much of - especially this time of year. I really enjoyed hearing what the guys had to say in that thread.

Formerly Guest,
Seeing how things have gone at BSU, it would be naive to think that Petersen wouldn't leave at some point. Everybody else has. I don't think it will be real soon as he seems to be real grounded person. He's being paid much better that the previous coaches. He seems to understand, and appreciate the quality of life he and his family have here in Boise, and BSU in general. The lack of media presser also adds to quality of life here.

Here's a true story for you. When BSU was preparing for the Fiesta Bowl, Dirk Koetter was around the team a lot in Arizona. Coincidental, Miami (fl) was playing in the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, so Koetter was up here a lot interviewing for the OC job with Miami. A member of the media asked Kotter about Petersen leaving (because Koetter left, and Petersen was becoming a hot coach). Koetter who is good friends with Peterson laughed, and said : the day I hear Petersen is leaving, I'm getting on a plane,and flying up there with a baseball bat to explain to Petersen why he shouldn't leave.

I tell you that story so you'll understand Petersen's relationship with Koetter, which was built at Oregon. Additionally, Petersen had a good friendship with Dan Hawkins who was at Willamette. That's why they all ended up together at BSU when Koetter got the HC job. Because they had such good times at Oregon, If there is one place where Peterson would be willing to look at very seriously, I think it might be Oregon. Those good times, an fond feelings stick with a guy, even when your head knows you can never recapture that same experience.

Thanks guys

Posted by BoiseTruth

12:31 PM, Jul 23, 2008

pressure, but I'm sure someone has a presser somewhere :)

Posted by Formerly Guest

11:11 AM, Jul 24, 2008

Boise Truth,
Thanks. I would really prefer not to see Peterson at UO. I can understand Koetter's point.